A star of the Russian aerospace arsenal suffered its first casualty this weekend in Ukraine: at least one Sukhoi Su-34 tactical attack and fighter-bomber was shot down north of Kiev.
It’s not a casual loss, and it also indicates that the air war over Ukraine is entering a new phase — and that shouldn’t be good news for those on the ground or for Vladimir Putin’s forces.
The plane featured in a widely circulated video on Saturday that showed it crashing over a residential area of ​​Chernihiv, northeast of the capital, to applause from residents.
Photos of the wreckage allowed the aircraft to be accurately identified. It is the Su-34 number 24 Red, delivered to the Air Force in 2018, being based in Chelyabinsk (Siberia). On Friday, there was a report of the overthrow of another model of the type in Volkhonava, but no evidence has yet been presented.
According to the Ukrainian press, the plane was shot down by a missile fired by the Russian portable launcher of Soviet origin Igla-S, which is used in Brazil, which means that the aircraft was flying at less than 5 km altitude. The episode also shows a clear military implication.
The Su-34 is a powerful long-range twin-engine equipped for high-altitude precision strikes. If he was flying low and, from the available footage, was carrying FAB-500 free-fall bombs, he assumed it was possible to make an attack near the ground without opposition.
Since the beginning of the war on February 24, Russia has been degrading Ukrainian air defenses. But portable launchers and old Soviet mobile systems are nearly impossible to eradicate.
There are two considerations here. First, that the Russians may have abused their pride in action. More importantly, however, they are willing to expose their crown jewels in this new phase. So far, the bulk of Putin’s air strikes have been conducted with Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles, and Krypton anti-radar missiles.
When employing tactical aviation, the risks of loss go up in the air, but mostly on the ground. Being targeted by “dumb” bombs like the FAB-500, Ukrainian civilians will face greater areas of destruction, which is consistent with the idea that Putin now wants to pressure Kiev to surrender through a more intense campaign and with sieges on large cities.
The Russian Defense Ministry itself made a point of marking the inflection with a video, posted on YouTube this Sunday (6), showing a Su-34 and a Su-25 fighter-bomber taking off with bombs to attack Ukraine.
There is a prestigious price to pay. In addition to the Su-34, there are unconfirmed reports that seven other aircraft were shot down on Saturday alone, including Su-30SM multirole fighters and Mi-24/35M attack helicopters.
One of the latter starred in another video that went viral over the weekend, being knocked down close to the ground. There, the additional curiosity is about which portable missile launcher was used, if the American Stinger, whose delivery was announced by European countries and the USA, or if a British Starstreak – the speed and the smoke trail suggest the second, which even now it was not known to be in Kiev’s hands.
Western military analysts had expressed surprise at the Russian Air Force’s lack of action in the conflict and the fact that the Ukrainians apparently still operate their planes and defenses on a somewhat limited basis. Now will be the time to assess whether the Russian aviation fiasco in the 2008 war against Georgia, which led to the reorganization and modernization of Putin’s Armed Forces, worked out in practice.
But the situation is clearly getting tough for the Ukrainians, who had 37 MiG-29s and 34 Su-27s before the war. President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to get NATO to establish a no-fly zone, which would risk World War III, and now wants Poland and Slovakia to give him the MiG-29s they operate.
The problem is to bring the plane by ground to its territory, since flying it could configure a military intervention against the Russians. This Sunday, the US discussed the matter with the governments of NATO allies.
In the case of the Su-34, the pilot ejected and survived, but his navigator was trapped in the cockpit and died. The aviator was captured, and his image began to circulate, causing astonishment at the notoriety of the figure: it is a certain Major Krasnorutchev, who in 2016 posed next to Putin and the dictator Bashar al-Assad at the Russian base of Hmeimin, in Syria.
With other Russian pilots and planes in the background, the military intervention promoted by Putin in 2015 to save the ally in the brutal civil war that started in 2011 was celebrated. Moscow had the opportunity to try out its aircraft and tactics in real combat, and the South -34 quickly gained a reputation as a relentless plane.
Its performance was so praised that production, timid since entering service in 2014, was accelerated. Until the war there were 122 units spread over three regiments, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London). With a top speed of 1,900 km/h, it carries up to eight tons of bombs and missiles, in various configurations.
The Su-34 is a redesign of the classic Su-27, whose first prototype flew in 1990, in the Soviet twilight. It has been in development for years. It has a largely modified cabin: larger, with a flatter bottom and fully armored. The two pilots go side by side, while in two-seat versions of modern variants like the Su-30 they are one behind the other.
Following a trend of modern forces, it is expected to replace other older models, such as the venerated Su-25 and Su-24 ground attack aircraft, both in action in Ukraine, on both sides of the conflict.
